


sun stealer

by spideywhiteys



Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dancing in the Rain, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Paramedic AU, as he should, basically this whole thing is shikamaru waxing poetic about uzumaki naruto, but it's not...really the focus, he's a simp, naruto is a paramedic/emt, shika is pining so hard, shika's job isn't specified bc im lazy, technically pre-slash, there's no other way to put it, they're just super cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideywhiteys/pseuds/spideywhiteys
Summary: The sun doesn't live in the sky, it in lives in the apartment next door. The sun's name is Naruto, and Shikamaru is earthbound and squinting, willing to go blind.
Relationships: Nara Shikamaru/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086938
Comments: 9
Kudos: 217





	sun stealer

**Author's Note:**

> DAY 9: Paramedic AU / Shikamaru + Naruto

The thing about Shikamaru is that he’s a lazy bastard and he knows it. That’s somehow worse than a bastard who is less self-aware, and he knows that too. He keeps his curtains closed 24/7 and his eyes always look strained because he stares at a bright screen in the dark, even though his mother’s voice rings in his ears telling him he’ll ruin his eyesight that way.

Whatever.

She can’t tell him what to do anymore. He’s twenty-six now, a full adult with a job and everything. A life of his own. Even if it  _ is _ a pain. It’s not like he’s wanting for anything. It’s not like he’s unhappy with his current state of being. He has an apartment, a job, bills he can  _ just _ afford to pay while making sure he can eat.

_ When will you give me a grandchild, huh? _

Shikamaru tries to drown out his mother’s voice with a groan, rolling over in his bed and attempting death by pillow suffocation. He’s always expected his life to go like any other’s. A job. A wife. Two kids and maybe some kind of pet that he’d try not to get attached to and then inevitably would. Stereotypical and completely normal. No extra effort needed.

Except he’s twenty-six, and while that’s definitely still young and perfectly fine, his mother is impatient and both his best friends are already married. Sai is a great guy, if a little weird and socially stunted; Karui is a great woman, if a little too loud for Shikamaru’s tastes. But they’re good. Kind. Perfect partners for Ino and Chouji.

Their contentedness is basically his own. 

No matter how many dates Ino tries to set him up on. No matter how many marriage meetings his mother tries to schedule. He’s  _ content. _

Shikamaru gets ready for work, going through the usual movements and he’s  _ content. _ Morning coffee, strong and bitter and sitting on his tongue like engine oil. A bowl of cereal he doesn’t remember buying. Then he freshens up and brushes his teeth, throws on his work clothes and he’s set. His eyes still ache a little and it feels like both lids have ten pound weights on them.

These days he always feels exhausted. And old. Though, as previously established, twenty-six is not old. Even if his back feels like that of an eighty year old man. He grunts when he stretches and his spine cracks in relief. 

The apartment he lives in only has three floors, with him on the second. It’s homey. Roomy. Each apartment offers a good amount of space, even offering varied sizes for those with larger families. His single bedroom home isn’t the best for guests but that’s kind of the point. Of course, he caved and got a pull-out couch. And Ino somehow stashed an air mattress in his closet. So he has friends crashing at his place more than he would like.

But it’s fine.

The place is within his budget. Nicely built. Good ratings or whatever. Resident parking spaces included, which was a goddamn relief because the nearest train station was a thirty minute walk and Shikamaru can barely get out of bed early enough to be on time with a car—nevermind added walk time. He’s very much the time who would prefer to stay in the warmth and comfort of his bed for as long as possible.

So he leaves at 8, every day. Strictly for the extra sleep. That’s it.

“Hey, Shikamaru!”

He grunts, “Hey.”

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his neighbor leaves at the same time, dressed in paramedic blues, the emergency services patch bright like a target on his sleeve. Blond hair and blue eyes, different from Ino. More visceral in Shikamaru’s eyes, like a captured sun and sky. Three scars on each cheek, like whiskers. An accident in childhood, he told Shikamaru once, maybe their fifth meeting. Not that Shikamaru has been keeping count...his brain just notices these things.

Content.

He’s content.

He walks elbow to elbow with Uzumaki Naruto and it feels nothing like the discomfort of a blind date set up by friends or his parents. It just feels like that slip of sun through the thin crack of his curtains. Like that relief coffee brings—not the taste, no, if he had to name a taste it would be some kind of buttery cookie. Melting in his mouth. Cooked so the center was gold and the edges were the same pretty brown as Naruto’s skin.

Shikamaru yawns and Naruto follows suit the way all do whenever exposed to the action.

“How long is your shift today?” He asks, barely putting a questioning tone in his voice so he doesn’t seem too interested. They’ve made it down to the first floor. It’s not a long walk, seeing as they both only live a floor above. It means their interactions are generally brief. Which Shikamaru refuses to feel any which way about. If his friends even  _ smell _ a lick of….whatever it is that he’s feeling, they’ll never let him live it down. They’ll come to his apartment and camp out until they get their answers. There is only so much of them that Shikamaru can take when he has to go to work on top of dealing with their shenanigans. 

“Short shift today!” Naruto smiles, and he’s the sun peeking from the clouds. He’s the breeze on a sweltering day. The match to warm you in the middle of winter. “Only until 7.”

“7? That’s short?” That’s...probably a ten hour shift if Naruto starts at 9. How ridiculous. There’s so much energy packed in his body, more than Shikamaru could ever conceive. There’s an entire solar system flowing through Naruto, pumping through his veins, warming his skin, peering out behind his eyes. Shikamaru thinks he could crack Naruto open and a galaxy would spill out.

Naruto tilts his head back and laughs, even though nothing Shikamaru has said is funny. “Aw, it’s not so bad. Got the day off tomorrow anyway.”

Shikamaru stops before his car. It’s an old thing, but it runs well and he paid for it himself. It’ll last another ten years if he’s careful. Shikamaru is careful. Usually. He can be careful with Naruto, if that’s what the man wants. Can treat him like those fragile flower stems in hefty bouquets—like the ones in Ino’s shop. Filled with color. So much color. More color than Shikamaru has ever seen, enough color that it leaves nothing for anyone else. And that’s fine, because Naruto deserves all the colors in the world.

(Shikamaru is content to live in newspaper print and stare at a man who gleams in HD color.)

“You’ve been working a lot lately.” He stalls, fingers on his keys. He doesn’t open his car. Naruto doesn’t move away. They just stand there and Shikamaru wants to engrave this moment in his memory to power himself through the day. “What a drag. I don’t know how you do it.”

Naruto licks his lips, thoughtful. His mouth is red and his lips are red and his heart is red. “Dunno. I like it. Helping people, even if it’s just a little, ya know? I think...people are like houses.”

“Like houses?”

Naruto taps Shikamaru’s chest, and he’s close, close enough that Shikamaru can smell the mint of his toothpaste and the tang of oranges clinging to his skin and feel the heat of Naruto’s fingertips through his shirt. “Ever heard that saying?  _ Home is where the heart is. _ Well...I think it’s stupid to think that homes are just buildings. A house is a building. A home is a person. People house hearts, their own or someone else’s. And sometimes houses get a little broken down or the heating stops or the pipes get clogged.” he laughs a little after that. “And you get people to fix it. So fixing someone’s  _ home  _ feels really important.”

Naruto scratches his forehead, thumbs his nose. His teeth flash when he smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m not super great with words. Never really did well in language arts.”

“Yeah, figured.” Shikamaru finds himself saying, teasing, barely able to breath because it feels like Naruto’s finger has poked a whole right through his lung. “Well, I think I get what you mean. I gotta get to work.”

Naruto blinks, and they’re still so close that Shikamaru can see every pale, golden lash flutter with the movement. “Oh, right. Whoops—sorry, guess time really does fly when I’m talking to you.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He gets in the car, watching Naruto stand with his hands shoved in the pockets of his EMT jacket, the brightest thing in a mile radius. In the world, probably. “I’ll see you tonight.”

And Naruto tilts his head, perturbed for only a moment. “Yeah!”

“Troublesome.” Shikamaru says to himself when he’s driving away, because he’s never said something like that before and he’s never felt something like this before. Maybe he’s swallowed a sun instead, maybe he’s about to burst at the seams and all that fiery energy will return to where it belongs. Tucked under Naruto’s skin.

What is he doing? He’s supposed to be content.

_ Content. _

He’s supposed to find a woman, one his mother approves of and his father congratulates him for or something. Whatever. Someone to give him kids. But they aren’t stupid, they probably already know he leans both ways, probably know his eyes track masculine figures on screen just as they do feminine ones. That crush he had in fourth grade on the neighbor’s boy. 

They aren’t stupid, but they’re hoping. They’re hoping and Shikamaru is hoping but he’s hoping for something else entirely. 

Maybe he hasn’t swallowed the sun yet, but damn, he wants to.

* * *

When Shikamaru gets back from work at 5pm, he pulls into his parking space and stares at the place he left Naruto this morning. It’s another two hours before the other man gets out, and Shikamaru feels even more desolate and pathetic than usual. 

He almost got married once, to a woman named Temari. They’d met his first year of college and she’d been blonde and mean and strong. He probably has a type, though Naruto is less  _ mean  _ and more  _ overwhelming force of nature.  _ The kind of storm that people chase. The kind of storm that bulldozes the earth and washes it anew. Shikamaru wants to be something new.

He wants a lot of things. Wants to do something else other than wake up and move his body in the coordinated motions of a routine he’s carved into. Shikamaru wants to pull his curtains open and see the sun spill entirely through his windows, washing his apartment in shades of Naruto. 

Shikamaru is always tired and he likes lazing around but he also likes using his brain, for puzzles or shogi or ruminating under the clouds. He wants to press Naruto close and  _ drink him _ like fuel, like he can turn the man into his own personal battery. He wants to collapse under that force of nature in human skin and be dragged along for the ride. He wants to be there when Naruto trips and stumbles and reaches—reaches for something, anything, and that something, anything will be Shikamaru. Naruto is the one with the power to make a change in someone’s life, and Shikamaru isn’t that motivated or strong but he thinks he can be if it’s for Naruto. He thinks he can watch over the man who gives away pieces of himself, of his time and tears like currency.

_ I’ll see you tonight. _

Why had he said that?

“Ugh,” he mutters, smashing his forehead against his steering wheel before he finally musters the energy to leave. What was he even saying? What was he planning? Was it just him thinking too much into this? Probably. His brain always moves a thousand miles per second. He’s already thought about five hundred different scenarios for tonight during his shift.

But he’s fine. He can...he can do something, right? Anything. It won’t be weird. Shikamaru refuses to let it be weird, that’s too much energy. 

He stares at the door to his apartment and thinks about what he has in the kitchen. Not much, and he can’t even cook well to begin with. Naruto can cook. Shikamaru remembers that. His father had taught him how, but the blond usually ends up getting takeout anyway.

254 scenarios involved Shikamaru attempting to cook. He wasn’t fond of those routes based on their success ratio.

So. Takeout it is. Although 145 other scenarios involved him going over at 7 only to see that Naruto had picked up his own takeout on his way home. Whatever. Shikamaru can work his way around that. His brain to mouth filter is eons better than Naruto’s, he knows that much already. Maybe he shouldn’t think about Naruto’s mouth at all.

Half the struggle is picking a place to order from, the other half is waiting for the right time to order it. Shikamaru sits for a moment, wondering how he ended up so desperate to hear Naruto’s footsteps passing his door. Wondering how he’s ended up here, expending more energy than he has in months, for his neighbor. For his neighbor who might not feel the same way, even if he does like men too. 

Because Shikamaru is smart, even if he doesn’t like to be, even if he doesn’t like to show it. He reads people the same way others read books, with only a few glances. Every conversation reveals more to him than intended. Words, visuals, movements, eyes, pulse—Shikamaru wants to close his eyes and shut his brain off more times than not. But he would happily let his brain burn out analyzing every facet of Uzumaki Naruto.

_ Gross. Stop being sappy. _

He chooses ramen for takeout because it’s half of what Naruto talks about and it’s better safe than sorry. He orders too much, but that’s fine. They have all night, or maybe none of the night at all, it really depends on how this goes. It really depends on how much courage Shikamaru can scrounge up. 

It really depends.

The knock on his door at 6:53 startles him. It’s the food, steaming and still warm in a plastic bag. Weighty in his hands and stretching the bag taut. It smells good. His stomach rumbles angrily. He thanks the delivery man and offers a tip because he’s a little distracted right now but he’s not a complete dick.

He can almost taste the salt in the air, and he thinks of the salt of Naruto’s sweat and the salt that will inevitably be on his breath. Mixing in the air with the citrus of his shampoo or body wash or whatever, whatever, whatever; he always smells like an orchard and it drives Shikamaru crazy. Naruto drives Shikamaru crazy and not knowing  _ why _ drives him crazy.

_ Knock knock. _

Shikamaru blinks from his spot at the kitchen table, staring at the clock like a complete psycho. He looks from the door to the food and wonders if one of the 38 scenarios that include Naruto knocking first is about to happen. 

It is.

Naruto looks up at him, cloudy skies and all. A little worn and haggard but still exuding more energy than Shikamaru does even after a good night’s rest. Shikamaru is in sweats and a loose T-shirt, Naruto is still in his work clothes. He hasn’t been in his own apartment yet, keys dangling from his fingers. He looks like a lot of things. Hopeful. He’s hopeful and Shikamaru is hopeful and maybe they’re hopeful about the same thing.

“Hi,” he says, nervous but beautiful and blossoming like a flower in fast-forward.

“Hi,” Shikamaru replies, squinting because Naruto is too bright and Shikamaru is too used to a room with all the curtains drawn.

The blond shifts. “I, um, I’m just wondering if we’re on the same page. ‘Cause I feel like we did one of those...underneath the underneath things. But I told you I’m not great with words, so maybe our words mean different things? Like maybe you didn’t mean it but I meant it. Or you didn’t think I meant it? Ya know?”

“I have dinner waiting, if you wanna change.” He manages to get out, slouching, more interested in anything than he’s ever been and unable to show it, but he thinks maybe Naruto gets it. “As long as you meant what I meant.”

Naruto grins like spring turning to summer, like subtle heat warming across Shikamaru’s chilled skin. “Yeah, I think so. No, wait—definitely. I’m gonna, uh,” he points to the side, to the direction of his apartment. “I’m gonna change. And I’ll, I’ll be back. And we’ll eat and stuff. In your house?”

“Yeah.” Shikamaru’s mouth is dry and he wants to wet it with Naruto’s. “In my house.”

“Cool.” Naruto says. “Cool.” He repeats. Then he grins like a complete dork and almost trips when he walks because he can’t stop looking at Shikamaru, and Shikamaru knows too much how that feels so he can’t even laugh. But he smiles.

And they eat in loose, comfortable clothes. Clothes they wear around the house and that’s what it feels like. Just two of them, together on any other day. Around the house. Sharing space in a home and Shikamaru thinks about Naruto’s words about people and houses and thinks and thinks and hopes. Hopes that they think the same thing. 

“How’d you know this was my favorite?” Naruto exclaims, broth on his chin, shiny and oily. A real mess, like his blond hair and the tangle in Shikamaru’s chest.

Shikamaru was a fool to think he could eat the sun.

“You talk about it every five seconds, how could I not.” Shikamaru replies, droll, leaning back against his couch because if they’re playing _ comfortable,  _ they’re going all the way. Ramen on his coffee table and cushions tossed on the ground, the TV on but the volume low and neither of them are really watching anyway.

It’s just background noise, like the steady patter of rain outside. Rain that had begun not ten minutes ago and only picked up. Shikamaru thinks of cloudy skies and the sun sitting next to him. He doesn’t care if it rains forever if it means he can keep Naruto here, close, tuck him in his pocket and take him everywhere. 

They eat and talk, talk until Shikamaru’s throat hurts a little because he just  _ doesn’t _ talk that much. But denying Naruto is hard, and it’s not too bad anyway, this kind of talking. Naruto fills most of the silence and seems content to do so, and Shikamaru is content to let him do so. So they work, the two of them, together.

Content.

“We should go out.”

Shikamaru almost drops his last bite of noodles into his lap. He swallows them with difficulty and lets the words hang in the air. Naruto looks to the window, to the rain that pours from a gray sky with no color, because Naruto has taken all the color. 

“It’s raining, we’ll be drenched. And it’s cold, probably.”

“Everyone else will be inside.” Naruto continues, a pout on his red, salty lips, and the skin around them is still smudged and shiny with ramen broth. “It’ll just be us two. I’ve always wanted to dance in the rain with someone.”

Shikamaru barely feels like a person. “Everyone’s inside and we should be, too. Where it’s nice and comfortable and  _ not _ wet.”

“I don’t need to be in a house when I’m with you to feel comfortable, Shika.” And he smiles like he’s saying something underneath those words. Something that could be hope and something Shikamaru can only dream about. 

Which is somehow terrible because Naruto is like some great, untouchable thing wrapped in an idiot’s flesh and Shikamaru feels torn between running and cracking open Naruto’s ribs to settle in his lungs, right by his heart. Like some grotesque parasitic entity, feeding off the beat of the blond’s organ. Greedy, that’s what Shikamaru is. Greedy for a hand on Naruto’s pulse, on supple skin and proof of life. 

Naruto takes his hand and Shikamaru goes because he can’t stop a tidal wave or a nuclear bomb. He’s just one man against someone that might as well be a cosmic entity. And Shikamaru isn’t even sure he wants to move, isn’t sure he wants to follow, because then there’s no way he’s going back. There’s no way he can ignore the heat between their hands or the way he feels like Naruto is a sun stretching his shadow into something huge and great and  _ better. _

Shikamaru. Better.

But he goes. Just a man still, a man against a sunny smile. It’s probably worse if Naruto is just a man, too. Just another man of flesh and blood and bone, who is soft and firm under Shikamaru’s hands. His hair is just hair. His eyes are just blue. Maybe Naruto isn’t special at all, but that’s fine too. He’s special enough to Shikamaru, and he could live his whole life happily if no one else ever saw Naruto as the fiery deity Shikamaru saw him as. 

Naruto shines like the universe’s weight in gold in Shikamaru’s eyes. So no, Shikamaru doesn’t see just  _ hair  _ or just  _ eyes. _

He sees Naruto, shrouded in liquid gold, in captured stars, in ethereal ore. Eyes like clear, azure oceans, hazy skies captured in both irises. Skin like caramel, like soft, moldable brown—Shikamaru wants to press against his flesh like clay, mold them together until their bodies are symbiotic and where one ends, the other begins.

“It’s raining out.” He says. “We really will get wet.”

Naruto replies, “I know.”

Their hands are warm, and Shikamaru’s eyes hurt from staying up late in the dark with his phone and staring at Naruto. They stumble out of the apartment complex in only their socks and  _ dammit _ —

Socks are soaked on wet concrete, shirts are drenched within seconds. Naruto’s hair turns a shade of burnt gold. He grins with white teeth and clear skies for eyes.

“This is awful.” Shikamaru complains. He’s not comfortable at all.

Naruto laughs. Shikamaru watches his throat shake, watches rain slide down the bare planes of his neck, past his pulse and collecting for a moment in the jut of his collarbone. He has the faintest desire to bite it. To suck the liquid from Naruto’s warm skin.

“Don’t be a draaaag, Shika. We’re doing somethin’ spontaneous! Somethin’ you’ve never done before! Isn’t that amazing?”

And maybe, as Shikamaru is pulled into a lopsided, uncoordinated dance in the rain, feeling uncomfortable and soggy, his lungs swelling too big for the cage of his chest, he thinks  _ yes. _ It is amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow / Support me on [Tumblr](https://spideyfoof.tumblr.com/) and let me know if you'd like to see more of this AU!


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